Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Mooncup

Last month when I blogged about our decision to give up international air travel, I asked if there is anything that you have given up in order to live a more sustainable life.

One reader emailed to say that she had bought herself a menstrual cup because she wanted to stop using disposable sanitary products. This is something I have also been wanting to do.

I hate that the Australian Government has placed the GST on sanitary items because they are considered non-essential, and even though I compost my tampons I still hate the waste of having to buy new ones every single month.

I have a friend who uses a Mooncup, so I bought myself one too. I have used it for one period now. It's recommended you empty it every four hours or so, but I found myself emptying it more often because I couldn't wait to see how full it was. The cup has measurements on the side so you can see how much you're harvesting. I was actually surprised how little blood there was as my tampons are usually soaked through, especially on the second day, my heaviest. I was also surprised by the colour of the blood - a rich, dark colour that tampons usually make look paler.

Each time I emptied the Mooncup I tipped the blood into a jar of water in the bathroom cupboard, then at the end of the five days I poured the bloody mix onto the soil around our budding fruit trees.

Why should I wait till I'm dead so my innards can be of use to the Earth?

Love the Mooncup! I've been using mine for close to 6 months now and also find the emptying process fascinating. Most people I know think it's a bit yuck, which I don't understand - surely tampons are worse?

this is soooo the answer when you live in a place that only just got tampons at the supermarkets! and none of the organic cotton ones just over packaged tampax ones. yikes. i think this could be the solution. would also be an awesome one for travelling with, i guess.

I know someone who tried to claim the cost of her sanitary pads on her tax after the GST was introduced. She did it to highlight how ridiculous it was to tax them. Her argument was that it was necessary for her work that she use them so as not to have blood running down her legs in the workplace. It amused me at the time.

About Me

Hello and welcome to my corner of the Internet. I am a 40 year-old from the city who now lives in the hills outside of Melbourne, Australia. I live with my boyfriend, the artist/poet Patrick Jones, and our two boys Zephyr and Blackwood. Together, we make up the Artist as Family.